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CNN Live At Daybreak

Israeli Warplanes Bomb Palestinian Security Compound in Gaza City

Aired December 07, 2001 - 05:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: We're going to turn our attention now to the conflict going on in the Middle East. Israeli warplanes today bombed a Palestinian security compound in the southern part of Gaza City. At least two large explosions shook the ground there and CNN's Matthew Chance is live by phone in Gaza City, but first we're going to go to senior international correspondent Sheila MacVicar who is in Jerusalem with the very latest from there. Hello Sheila.

SHEILA MACVICAR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning Catherine. Well as you said, Israeli airplanes after a two-day halt striking in Gaza, but here in Jerusalem the focus today is on the question of numbers. Those numbers, of course, the number of people arrested by the Palestinian authority. It is seen as the test of Yasser Arafat's commitment or not to ending these acts of terror, and what he has been told over and over by many different people - American, Israeli, and yesterday the Egyptian foreign minister he must do.

Now the Palestinian authority says that they have so far arrested 180 people. Of those 180, there is a smaller number, about 14 we're told, who are on a key list of a little more than 30 handed over to the Palestinian authority by the Americans. Now these people that are on this smaller list are people who are believed key in planning and helping to carry out acts of terror, and it is those people that are still outstanding, that are still very much wanted, both the Americans and Israelis very much want to see arrested.

They are the major tests of what Mr. Arafat's intentions are. Now we're hearing just a few moments ago from the Israeli government spokesman Ranan Geeson (ph) who told us that there has been some movement on the part of Mr. Arafat, but he cautions that it has in large measure been, if you will, a little illusory, that he's not really, according to Mr. Geeson, doing the things that he must do to crack down on those who are architects of terror or in the infrastructure of terror.

Now a little later on today, we expect that the U.S. envoy General Zinni will hold what's called a trilateral security meeting. Now that's a meeting where he brings together the Israelis and the Palestinians, the security chiefs, they sit together in a room and talk about the situation. Now the Israelis are telling us that they don't think that very much is going to come out of that meeting and that frankly, they're doing it as a favor to the Americans. America is saying, of course, it's important.

But at that meeting General Zinni is going to hand over a list of what are called 19 steps - not just these arrests, but a crackdown on the whole infrastructure of terror, whether it's weapons, weapons of manufacturing sites, safehouses, or financing - things that they - excuse me, want to see the Palestinians do in the next day or two. They say they don't have very much time. They'd like to see real movement here. Now yesterday on the diplomatic front, of course, we had the Egyptian Foreign Minister Mr. Maher here. He left here last night. When he got back to Cairo, he talked about his failure to achieve any kind of convergence of views - that he was not able to get any sense or much sense of any movement or commitment out of Mr. Arafat.

Now as you said Catherine, last night again Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, apparently targeting in a police compound - a site that Israeli officials say was being used to produce mortars and other weapons. Matthew Chance is in Gaza. He's at the - a funeral for the Hamas supporter who was killed yesterday - Matthew.

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right Sheila, as you mentioned, there are a lot of international pressure from the international community, as well as specifically from the Israelis being placed on Yasser Arafat, Palestinian authority to really crack down on those militant groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and others like them. What we're getting here though on the ground in Gaza is a picture of just how politically difficult it's become for Yasser Arafat to continue those arrests (INAUDIBLE).

As you mentioned following the funeral of Mohammed Salmi (ph) today, 20 years old, a Hamas supporter who was killed yesterday local time in a confrontation with the Palestinian security forces that erupted following the placing under house arrest of Sheikh Yassin, the Hamas spiritual leader by the authorities - the Palestinian authorities and a lot of public anger on the streets, not just against the Israelis, of course, following the very intensive airstrikes we've been seeing on various installations across the Gaza Strip over the course of this week, but also with the Palestinian authority itself.

Many people here see the Palestinian authority through these arrests as doing the dirty work of the Israelis and they are very angry at the moment that those arrests are continuing even while the Israeli airstrikes continue on installations in the Gaza Strip. You mentioned also last night (INAUDIBLE) this morning, in fact local time, we were all shaken out of our bed in the hotel here in Gaza and we ran out onto the streets because we heard two very large explosions that literally shook the ground underneath as Israeli warplanes reaching through the skies once again dropping two bombs on the Arafat police headquarters here in Gaza.

Our understanding is that the Israeli authorities have said that this was a bomb-making factory. We visited the scene last night. What we saw, two buildings laid to rubble. Local police officials telling us that this was a dormitory - in the mess, the kitchen and the dining room where the Palestinian authority police forces sat down denying here that this was a bomb making facility. Certainly, whatever the truth, there's a lot of anger on the streets here, a lot of frustration about what's happening in the Palestinian authority Sheila.

MACVICAR: Catherine, as you've heard from Matthew there, a sense of the kind of difficulty that Yasser Arafat faces on his own streets. Palestinians angry that people are being arrested while the Israeli airstrikes still continue - a sense that if - that if Mr. Arafat continues with these arrests, of course, we're talking about the arrest of people who are hard line supporters of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in large measure, that he will face increasing difficulty from his people. But again, Catherine, an important meeting this afternoon - this trilateral security meeting taking place between the Israelis, Palestinians, and Americans and a sense that there is not a lot of time for Mr. Arafat to show that he is really committed to ending these acts of terror - Catherine.

CALLAWAY: All right, that's CNN's Sheila MacVicar joining us from Jerusalem. We also want to thank Matthew Chance who was joining us by phone from Gaza.

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